Study: Yeah, that NYC soda ban would probably backfire

posted at 7:41 pm on April 11, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

Ah, the utter folly of trying to impose top-down virtue on the oh-so-unenlightened masses.

Bloomberg’s now infamous large-soda ban, ostensibly designed to serve the twofold purpose of both limiting people’s sugary-drink intake and raising awareness of their poor health choices, was put on hold at the eleventh hour by a judge’s ruling last month — but some researchers at UC San Diego were curious whether the law would really have had its intended effect.

A new study suggests this type of law may backfire and actually cause people to purchase more sugary beverages. …

For the study, published April 10 in PLoS One, Wilson and fellow researchers offered 100 participants three kinds of menus. One “unregulated” menu offered drinks in 16 ($1.59), 24 ($1.79) or 32-ounce sizes ($1.99), one menu offered only 16-ounce drinks (also for $1.59) for sale and the third offered either one 16-ounce soda ($1.59) or bundles of two 12-ounce ($1.79) or 16-ounce ($1.99) sodas. …

Participants bought significantly more soda from the menu with bundles of 12 ounce and 16 ounce drinks than they did when offered individual sodas of different sizes.

The researchers also determined based on these choices, that businesses could make more money bundling drinks than only offering one small size. Bundled drinks also outsold the unregulated menu with multiple sizes, which suggests this type of soda ban could make businesses more money.

And businesses, of course, will eventually adjust their menus to maximize their sales — meaning that the soda ban might very well have had the opposite effect of what Bloomberg set out to achieve. The study has its limitations, but the point stands: The outcome of Bloomberg’s would-be ban is very unclear, and it’s probably not wise to try to legislate social engineering that’s going to have who knows what results.

Government, like all other individuals and entities under the sun, operates under imperfect knowledge and also happens to be especially corruptible. Why is it that these progressive nanny-state types always presume to know better than the people making the decisions for themselves, and end up sticking us with the unintended consequences?

Blowback

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“At the time when I ate meat, I used to sweat a lot. I used to drink four pots of beer and six bottles of water during a meeting. … When I became a vegetarian, a mouthful of water was enough.”
- Adolf Hitler. January 22, 1942. Section 117, HITLER’S TABLE TALK

“Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky: It is the prohibition that makes anything precious.”

- Mark Twain

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

No worries. Bloomberg won’t live forever. The last remaining gasps of relevancy for an old man. Getting older by the day. Same with Hillary, Biden, Reid, Pelosi, et. al. In ten years, or less, the vanguard of the Nanny Boomer Generation will be dead, or drooling. And we WILL survive them. This country has survived far worse.

No worries. Bloomberg won’t live forever. The last remaining gasps of relevancy for an old man. Getting older by the day. Same with Hillary, Biden, Reid, Pelosi, et. al. In ten years, or less, the vanguard of the Nanny Boomer Generation will be dead, or drooling. And we WILL survive them. This country has survived far worse.

teacherman on April 11, 2013 at 9:21 PM

I’m not certain that we have.

A parasite from within is a far different thing from an attack from without.

I have hope that his country will survive. My study of history indicates it is unlikely to survive as it was, though.

Bundled drinks certainly would seem more attractive if the customer was so inclined because, given a lack of free refills or lack of ease of getting the refill, even if free, once the customer eats their meal they still have a full drink to carry away with them. After all, if you get a 32 oz or 16 oz drink and you drank a substantial portion of it, what is the use of dragging that cup that may be half full or less around with you. It is a bother. Finish it off and drop it in the trash.

My usual haunts are places with self-serve drink dispensers. I also buy a large (or medium, depends on what it fits my car’s cup holder) and refill before I leave. I live nearby so I take the drink to my place and sip away at it as I go online.

I drink diet soda so my consumption of soda is not quite as bad as might be supposed as far as sugar goes.

Bloomberg’s attempt shows that since there is no specific cost, except for an assumed trivial cost of enforcement, associated with the ban all calculations would point to the presumed substantial (if to be realized later) benefits which when injected into a benefit/cost calculation would greatly emphasize the “goodness” of the measure.